Thursday, September 8, 2011

Smuggling Cocaine With a Submarine, Visualized

I found this infographic oddly fascinating. I'm really not sure what can be done about this kind of problem - it rather reminds me of the Cold War buildup of nuclear weapons between the US and the Soviet Union. Drug smugglers find ways to smuggle drugs; law enforcement finds ways to detect the smuggling techniques; drug smugglers invent new techniques to smuggle drugs (including submarines, apparently); and the cycle repeats indefinitely.

As long as there is a huge, booming market for drugs in the US, I don't see law enforcement "winning" this battle - basic economics dictates that the market (whether legal or illegal) will provide supply to meet demand.

What can be done about this? I can't say I'm excited by the prospect of legalizing narcotics, so what's to be done - anti-drug education? That's been done for years, and people just keep using more drugs. I'm stumped - anyone else have any ideas?

About This Blog

I am one of the largely nameless, faceless bureaucrats who work tirelessly (and largely thanklessly) to help ensure that poor people don't go hungry - and a billion other tasks government bureaucrats do that no one notices until something stops working. Living and working in DC is making me angry - and I vent my anger as thoughtfully as I can. Well, OK, maybe I'm not terribly angry ... but I thought it was a good name for a blog. If you're also a bureaucrat, or angry, or thoughtful, I'm happy to entertain guest posts.